African American Crime

After a reunion with an old friend goes wrong in a Long Island nightclub, Kasheef Williams is forced to protect himself by any means necessary. The only problem is that prying eyes see everything. Those eyes belong to Alija Bell. She runs, but Kasheef sees her face, and he tells her that it's best for her to get temporary amnesia. Afraid for her life and the safety of her daughter, she keeps her mouth shut, but when a tape of the murder surfaces, the only face that is visible is Alija's. Now the police are looking for their eyewitness.

We last saw Easy in 2007’s Blonde Faith, fighting for his life after his car plunges over a cliff. True to form, the tough WWII veteran survives, and soon his murderous sidekick Mouse has him back cruising the mean streets of L.A., in all their psychedelic 1967 glory, to look for a young black man, Evander "Little Green" Noon, who disappeared during an acid trip. Fueled by an elixir called Gator’s Blood, brewed by the conjure woman Mama Jo, Easy experiences a physical, spiritual, and emotional resurrection, but peace and love soon give way to murder and mayhem.

When young queer dancer Wilbess “Bessy” Mulenga is arrested by corrupt police, fresh-from-the-village rookie lawyer Grace Zulu takes up his cause in her first pro bono case. Presented with a freshly beaten client, Grace protests to the police and gets barred from accessing Bessy, who then disappears from the system—and the world—without a trace. As she fights for justice for Bessy, Grace must navigate a dangerous world of corrupt politicians, traditional beliefs, and deep-seated homophobia.

This unique 2-in-1 book compilation combines the impactful narratives of two essential works: Black American History and Crime in Black America. Each standalone book is a treasure trove of insights and revelations, shedding light on critical aspects of the Black experience in America. In Black American History, the listener is taken on a journey through the depths of slavery, the injustices of Jim Crow, and the pervasive effects of police misconduct.

Some of the best-known and most influential pieces of crime fiction have been from African American writers. Be it Walter Mosley's great Detective Easy Rawlins, or the mean streets of Harlem at the hands of Chester Himes, the stories and characters in this anthology have shaped the mystery genre with their own unique viewpoints and styles. Contributors to the collection include Robert Greer, Chester Himes, Walter Mosley, Cary Phillips, Frankie Bailey, and Richard Wright.

Nan's day is not off to a good start. Her on-again, off-again relationship with Walter is off...again, and when she offers a fellow busker a place to stay for the night he ends up murdered on her kitchen floor. To make matters worse, the busker turns out to have been an undercover cop. And his former partner has taken an immediate and extreme dislike to Nan. When she finds that the dead man stashed a wad of cash in her apartment, cash that could go to help his blind girlfriend, Nan's desire to do the right thing lands her in trouble.

Today, Americans are debating our criminal justice system with new urgency. Mass incarceration and aggressive police tactics - and their impact on people of color - are feeding outrage and a consensus that something must be done. But what if we only know half the story? In Locking Up Our Own, the Yale legal scholar and former public defender James Forman Jr. weighs the tragic role that some African Americans themselves played in escalating the war on crime.

Niles has just returned from eight years of serving his country as a Special Forces sniper. He's looking forward to a consulting job with Dynamic Defense and spending time with his family, including his bipolar mother, Lorna, and his hard-drinking uncle, Willie. What Niles doesn't know is that Dynamic Defense is actually a CIA front. He's not interested in joining them, but they won't take no for an answer.

From Richard Wright comes a compelling story of one man's attempt to escape his past and start anew in Harlem. Cross Damon is a man at odds with society and with himself—a man of superior intellect who hungers for peace but who brings terror and destruction wherever he goes. The Outsider is an important work of fiction that depicts American racism and its devastating consequences in raw and unflinching terms. Brilliantly imagined and frighteningly prescient, it is an epic exploration of the tragic roots of criminal behavior.

Carl Weber brings the best of urban street lit authors together, all telling their own dramatic tales of life in the streets in known cities across the USA. The second installment continues with Treasure Hernandez telling the tale of the Dirty South.

At the age of nine, Issac J. Bailey saw his hero, his eldest brother, taken away in handcuffs, not to return from prison for thirty-two years. Bailey tells the story of their relationship and of his experience living in a family suffering guilt and shame. Drawing on sociological research as well as his expertise as a journalist, he seeks to answer the crucial question of why Moochie and many other young black men - including half of the ten boys in his own family - end up in the criminal justice system. What role did poverty, race, and faith play? What effect did living in the South, in the Bible Belt, have?

Travel back to a small Southern town where, before there was Duncan Motors, there were the Duncan brothers: Louis, aka Sweet Lou, a lover of ladies and life and a man you did not want to cross; Lawrence, aka Larry, a screw-up as attracted to trouble as it was to him; and Lavernius, better known as LC, the soft-spoken college boy who simply wanted to sell cars.

They were just kids when Claudette McPhearson took them all in. Eight of them all together. All different races and ethnic makeups, but she loved them as her own. One woman taught them how to love, trust, and respect one another. She was the only glue that kept them together, the only one they wanted to please and never let down. She had been their light at the end of a long troublesome tunnel - it shined so bright. Then, one dreadful day, it all came to a crashing halt.

During the civil rights movement, the state of Mississippi created an elaborate spy network. Its mission was to preserve segregation by any means necessary—including voter interference, sponsorship of white supremacy groups, and even murder.

As a low-level enforcer in Los Angeles, Ken Swift knows danger, but nowhere does he feel it more than in his tangled romances. Divorced from one woman, in love with another, and wrestling with a strong desire to get to know a third, his life is far from perfect, and it becomes all the more complicated when his troubled daughter resurfaces on the same day as a major job.

In Clan MacKenzie, we fight for each other. We die for each other. And when I fell for Chevelle, those same rules applied to her. She loves me, but hates the family business. So, I hid the villain in me until today. Today, I need to do what must be done and that requires the help of the same people she would rather us keep our distance from.

Kimera Davis finds comfort in dating married men. It's easier that way. Her needs are taken care of, and she doesn't have to give more of herself than she wants to. No messy feelings involved. But when the man she's seeing poses an unexpected question, Kimera quickly realizes she's not the only woman pulled in by his charm. Their new arrangement doesn't require much from Kimera, but she soon discovers someone else is pulling the strings. She's not looking for complications, yet she can't help feeling there's something devious at play.

For Reece and Qwess, being rap superstars was the dream, but in real life, nothing moved without the money. So they formed the Crescent Crew, an outfit of young, ruthless hustlers who locked the Southern drug trade in a stranglehold. They're at the height of their power when Qwess is offered a record deal from a major label. He accepts and makes plans for his whole crew to go legit, but Reece enjoys his position as king of the streets and has no desire to relinquish his crown.

Vaunda Micheaux Nelson received the Coretta Scott King Award for her children’s book Almost to Freedom. Here she relays the extraordinary story of Bass Reeves, a lawman in the Old West who escaped slavery to become one of the most successful U.S. Marshals in history.

Smoke Kings is a powerful and propulsive novel with a diverse and unforgettable cast of characters. Like Steph Cha's Your House Will Pay it explores decades of racial tensions through a fictional landscape where the line between justice and revenge is blurred.